


To Rest

by Xardogn



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:03:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3879766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xardogn/pseuds/Xardogn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short story set in the aftermath of Shuutoku’s game against Rakuzan. Midorima had no idea how teams and partners worked, but he couldn’t stand to be alone after one of the worst days of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Rest

Their steps  echoed loudly as the Shuutoku team walked away from their defeat into the empty dark hallway. Midorima himself had long given up on holding back the tears that stung his eyes and fogged up his glasses, letting them run silently down his face. 

He recalled saying something, hoping that possibly, maybe even Takao could say something stupid and snarky that would get him angry and stop this farce, but it didn’t work.

“Sorry, but I can’t cheer you up this time,” was the only reply he got, and the point guard’s voice sounded just as choked and broken as his. The team kept walking silently to their locker room, save for some mutterings from the seniors. Midorima had never actually been this upset in his entire life, so why now? 

_Was it because I lost? It can’t be. I had lost to Seirin once before and it was not this bad._

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as the green-haired prodigy remembered everything that Kuroko told him. Everything that he’d mocked Kise for. 

After the first defeat at the hands of Seirin and their newfound shadow, Midorima was shocked. He couldn’t quite comprehend, having never  _lost_ before, it was such a foreign feeling. He’d stood out in the rain, feeling numb to everything, not expecting his team to come back for him. After all he’d let them down, hadn’t he? For all his boasting, all of his work to ensure that his luck was at its highest possible level, and still they had lost. How could they possibly stand someone who failed?

Except Takao had come back for him. He’d ignored the buzzing of his phone, thinking it was just Aomine being an idiot, or worse,  _Kise,_ but a few moments later, an annoying black-haired point guard was clinging to him.

“What are you doing all the way out here, Shin-chan? Miyaji was pissed when he found out I lost you!” Takao had said, absolutely no signs of remorse in his expression.

Midorima didn’t answer at all, completely befuddled by the fact that Takao. Was talking to him. He had every intention of shoving the shorter boy away and stalking away to be alone in his misery again, but he wouldn’t let go. And just kept smiling at him like he wasn’t crying in the rain. (which was of course, intended to hide his tears.)

“Your face is gonna get stuck like that if you keep it up,” Takao said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Come on. Can’t have our ace wallowing in self-misery, can we?”

“But. Hey-I was not-!” Midorima bristled, but it just caused his partner to laugh again. It was an odd sound to his ears, but not entirely unpleasant. 

“The others thought you’d probably be upset, so I went to go find you so you didn’t get yourself lost or anything. Come on, Shin-chan, its okay.” The tug on his arm was more insistant this time. 

“What are you even babbling about, Takao?” He tried pushing up his glasses in a characteristic move, now that he’d stopped leaking water from his eyes, at least, but all it did was smudge them even worse. 

“Losing a game is not the end of the world.”

Midorima was about to reply with something along the lines of ‘oh really, and how would someone like you know that?’ and then stopped. Because honestly, Takao was the best at knowing that, having faced the Generation of Miracles in middle school. No, faced wasn’t the right word. Destroyed by. 

So he foolishly let himself get led away by Takao’s smiles, even enduring the jokes the point guard made at his expense to  _Seirin_ of all people, but when he looked at his former teammate in the eyes, he thought maybe, just  _maybe,_ Kuroko had been right.

Takao had volunteered to bike the rickshaw home. 

And Takao had stuck to him like glue even more ever afterwards. It was impossible to let him go, and returning to practice the next day, all the other teammates greeted him and treated him none differently. Midorima had scoffed, he had refused their teasing, he’d nearly strangled Takao, but more than all of that, he was infuriatingly, utterly, fascinatingly confused.

His team did not abandon him to the throes of defeat, and somehow, it had just lit a fire within him. It became normal for-in his own, preaching overly-confident way, to come to practice and try hard, not just for his own sake, but for theirs. 

Midorima had other people there. They had lost, he had acted like a fool, but Takao had come back for him.  _Takao had come back for him._ His practices had proceeded like normal for days and days until the thought just struck him one day, an angry knife in his ribcage, twisting with all the spite of his past failures. 

Kuroko had been right, gods, he’d been right this entire time, hadn’t he? Midorima never let himself falter on the outside, but inside, he was just as scared and broken from failure as Takao had been when they’d faced Teiko in middle school. And now that he’d experienced it, he never wanted to have it happen again. It was always Midorima’s philosophy to do everything in his own power to give himself the best of opportunities, and if this is what Kuroko had meant, then so be it.

Having a team really wasn’t so bad, anyway.

But even now, even in the present, silently putting away their belongings and dressing themselves so they wouldn’t catch cold, all that effort seemed useless. Midorima could almost hit himself for being so stupid. How could these new ideals, Takao’s passes, his senpais’ resolve, ever face up to Akashi Seijuro, whom he’d never even beaten once in shogi? 

It wasn’t until he fumbled and dropped his glasses to the floor that he’d noticed something was even off with him. He swore to himself and reached down to pick them up, but a black and orange blur beat him to it. 

“Shin-chan, are you okay?” Takao asked, placing the glasses back into Midorima’s hands. 

The shooting guard wanted to yell, scream, shake his teammate back and forth because there was no way in hell he was alright, he’d just lost again after trying so hard, with all his new convictions,  _you were crying how could I forgive myself for being weak?!_ but instead, he just took his glasses and slipped them on.

“I’m perfectly fine. There’s no need to be concerned for me, it’s a waste of time.”

_I’m really not okay. I want to cry._

Takao, typically did not believe him, and forced hands on his shoulders to sit shooting guard down. The other teammates had long since left when Midorima had been stuck in the past-he was sure they probably said something to him, but just left him alone. 

“Shin-chan, you nearly locked up your lucky item, and you forgot to tape up your fingers. You’re most certainly not okay,” his partner scolded him.

Midorima could say the same for him. Takao’s eyes were still red, and there were still obvious tear tracks on his face-he was looking worse than he had the one time he’d stayed up for two days straight in a row. “Hmph.”

“Don’t hmph, me. I’m not gonna let you go with that weak of an answer.” Somehow, Takao had always been very good at saying the right things at the exact right time, and know even when he was pushing his boundaries, but right now, Midorima wanted none of it.

“Will you shut up?!”

To his dismay, Takao did. For three minutes and twenty-seven seconds he did, until in a jerking, aching manuver, Midorima fumbled for the medical tape he always kept in his bag. Takao’s proximity made it slightly better somehow, being able to hear his slight breaths, the shift of fabric against skin.

It was horrible. If he’d been a kinder, better person, he probably could’ve reached out and given a hug, like the outgoing boy probably desperately needed, but he was awkward and scared and didn’t quite know how to ask for anything like that.

Right now he desperately wanted Takao to touch-well, that wasn’t the right phrasing, it sounded so  _wrong_ to him, but it wasn’t really a lie. Not a hug or anything huge, but if he could ask the point guard to hold his hand, he would. But Midorima had to shudder at the childish feeling and ask for something a little less dangerous.

“Takao. Can you-” His own voice sounded hoarse and horrible to him, holding back all the emotions that were threatening to bubble out. The medical tape was resting in his hands, tiny and forgotten.

“….Shin-chan?” Takao’s grey eyes were curious.

“My fingers. I’m-I can’t-I mean to say, right now I am unable…” He was begging his partner not to make him say it, and Takao pulled through. A smile of relief washed over the point guards face as he took up the tape in his own hands. 

Takao was holding Midorima’s hand as he started taping up the long fingers, but he wasn’t going to think about that. He wasn’t going to think about the way both of them were crying, and how Takao himself said he couldn’t cheer Shin-chan up this time. He tried not to think about anything.

He failed, of course. 

Takao’s hands were shaking too, as he started wrapping the tape gently around Midorima’s pinky finger, trying his best to get it straight. He kept messing up and his partner would exhale a tiny sigh, and rewrap it. The process continued for a little while, loop, sigh, another loop, sigh, redoing a whole finger, sigh. 

It wasn’t until the third finger that Midorima realized he was crying. Takao hadn’t realized either until a fat teardrop fell onto the hand he was holding. “Shin-chan!”

“This..this is ridiculous. I lost-I lost once to Kuroko already. Why is it-why is it so different this time?!” Maybe Takao would know. Maybe he’d have more experience with loss.

“I don’t know. But it’s probably because its Akashi. Kuroko doesn’t rub it in that he’s better than you, at least,” Takao said, the bitterness clear in his voice. Midorima couldn’t blame him, yet couldn’t bring himself to hate Akashi either.

“I had tried so hard…we all had…” Now he really didn’t sound like himself. Midorima wanted to dunk his head in cold water for acting so out of character but he had Takao right now he needed to take care of. 

“I know, Shin-chan. You’ve really improved these past couple months, you know? You may have been a stuck-up, arrogant wierdo at first, but now you’re OUR stuck-up arrogant weirdo.” It seemed that talking helped Takao to wrap his fingers better and in no time at all, all five of his fingers were done.

The tape was askew in a few places, but Midorima made no comment on it. “Shut up. Stuck-up and arrogant mean the same thing.”

“But you aren’t denying it, are you?” Takao’s finger poked him softly on the forehead, and made to let go of Midorima’s hand, but suddenly his fingers acted of his own volition and latched onto his partners. 

Takao was probably surprised, but didn’t show it as he stood up.”Come on. They’re probably all worried about us. What will they say if they see the great Midorima Shintarou crying in a locker room? Do you want Kagami and Kuroko to find you like this?”

Midorima shot him a glare that could probably freeze the Pacific over if he wanted to, lessened by the fact his eyes were still full of tears. “I will not accept this lying down. I will train harder and buy a better lucky item for all of us next time to ensure the best outcome.”

Takao laughed, actually laughed this time, and it was a balm to his still smarting wounds. Enough to wipe away at his eyes, enough to force his legs to stand and start moving in a lopsided rhythm.

He had completely, utterly and most decidedly acknowledged his defeat to Kuroko Tetsuya and wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Because that defeat had made him refuse to lose to anyone else. 

_Basketball could be fun. I concede to your point._

Midorima’s king had metaphorically been knocked over a long time ago, but he had failed to notice the hands that had helped him pick up the pieces again. The lingering fire in his heart, the desire to get stronger and prove that Shuutoku was deserving of the reigning crown. He was them and they were with him and he-

He really couldn’t stop crying, could he? This time a tiny smile escaped from his lips as they left the locker room to meet up with the team outside. Right now, for them, for himself, he could pull himself together. The time for emotions was when he was alone.

“Takao. You’re coming home with me, right?”

“Hmm.~ Is that an invitation?”

“If you’re going to speak to me that way forget I ever asked, idiot!”

“You never asked, you demanded-”

“TAKAO!”

“Alright, alright, can’t have my Shin-chan getting lonely.”

They had walked home together, after that night, and spent the night together too. And all that time, Midorima never once let go of Takao’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, my name is Xar and I apparently hate myself. That is all.


End file.
